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They Should Tell You Climate change

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Scientists’ depressing new discovery about the brain:
Forget the dream that education, scientific evidence or reason can help people make good decisions
LINK: Scientists’ depressing new discovery about the brain - Salon.com

Text: "Yale law school professor Dan Kahan’s new research paper is called “Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government,” but for me a better title is the headline on science writer Chris Mooney’s piece about it in Grist: “Science Confirms: Politics Wrecks Your Ability to Do Math.”

"Kahan conducted some ingenious experiments about the impact of political passion on people’s ability to think clearly. His conclusion, in Mooney’s words: partisanship “can even undermine our very basic reasoning skills…. [People] who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs.”

"In other words, say goodnight to the dream that education, journalism, scientific evidence, media literacy or reason can provide the tools and information that people need in order to make good decisions. It turns out that in the public realm, a lack of information isn’t the real problem. The hurdle is how our minds work, no matter how smart we think we are. We want to believe we’re rational, but reason turns out to be the ex post facto way we rationalize what our emotions already want to believe.

"For years my go-to source for downer studies of how our hard-wiring makes democracy hopeless has been Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth.

"Nyan and his collaborators have been running experiments trying to answer this terrifying question about American voters: Do facts matter?

"The answer, basically, is no. When people are misinformed, giving them facts to correct those errors only makes them cling to their beliefs more tenaciously.

Here’s some of what Nyhan found:

  • People who thought WMDs were found in Iraq believed that misinformation even more strongly when they were shown a news story correcting it.
  • People who thought George W. Bush banned all stem cell research kept thinking he did that even after they were shown an article saying that only some federally funded stem cell work was stopped.
  • People who said the economy was the most important issue to them, and who disapproved of Obama’s economic record, were shown a graph of nonfarm employment over the prior year – a rising line, adding about a million jobs. They were asked whether the number of people with jobs had gone up, down or stayed about the same. Many, looking straight at the graph, said down.
  • But if, before they were shown the graph, they were asked to write a few sentences about an experience that made them feel good about themselves, a significant number of them changed their minds about the economy. If you spend a few minutes affirming your self-worth, you’re more likely to say that the number of jobs increased.
"In Kahan’s experiment, some people were asked to interpret a table of numbers about whether a skin cream reduced rashes, and some people were asked to interpret a different table – containing the same numbers – about whether a law banning private citizens from carrying concealed handguns reduced crime. Kahan found that when the numbers in the table conflicted with people’s positions on gun control, they couldn’t do the math right, though they could when the subject was skin cream. The bleakest finding was that the more advanced that people’s math skills were, the more likely it was that their political views, whether liberal or conservative, made them less able to solve the math problem.

"I hate what this implies – not only about gun control, but also about other contentious issues, like climate change. I’m not completely ready to give up on the idea that disputes over facts can be resolved by evidence, but you have to admit that things aren’t looking so good for a reason. I keep hoping that one more photo of an iceberg the size of Manhattan calving off of Greenland, one more stretch of record-breaking heat and drought and fires, one more graph of how atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen in the past century, will do the trick. But what these studies of how our minds work suggest is that the political judgments we’ve already made are impervious to facts that contradict us.

"Maybe climate change denial isn’t the right term; it implies a psychological disorder. Denial is business-as-usual for our brains. More and better facts don’t turn low-information voters into well-equipped citizens. It just makes them more committed to their misperceptions. In the entire history of the universe, no Fox News viewers ever changed their minds because some new data upended their thinking. When there’s a conflict between partisan beliefs and plain evidence, it’s the beliefs that win. The power of emotion over reason isn’t a bug in our human operating systems, it’s a feature."
 
Scientists’ depressing new discovery about the brain:
Forget the dream that education, scientific evidence or reason can help people make good decisions
LINK: Scientists’ depressing new discovery about the brain - Salon.com

Text: "Yale law school professor Dan Kahan’s new research paper is called “Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government,” but for me a better title is the headline on science writer Chris Mooney’s piece about it in Grist: “Science Confirms: Politics Wrecks Your Ability to Do Math.”

"Kahan conducted some ingenious experiments about the impact of political passion on people’s ability to think clearly. His conclusion, in Mooney’s words: partisanship “can even undermine our very basic reasoning skills…. [People] who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs.”

"In other words, say goodnight to the dream that education, journalism, scientific evidence, media literacy or reason can provide the tools and information that people need in order to make good decisions. It turns out that in the public realm, a lack of information isn’t the real problem. The hurdle is how our minds work, no matter how smart we think we are. We want to believe we’re rational, but reason turns out to be the ex post facto way we rationalize what our emotions already want to believe.

"For years my go-to source for downer studies of how our hard-wiring makes democracy hopeless has been Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth.

"Nyan and his collaborators have been running experiments trying to answer this terrifying question about American voters: Do facts matter?

"The answer, basically, is no. When people are misinformed, giving them facts to correct those errors only makes them cling to their beliefs more tenaciously.

Here’s some of what Nyhan found:

  • People who thought WMDs were found in Iraq believed that misinformation even more strongly when they were shown a news story correcting it.
  • People who thought George W. Bush banned all stem cell research kept thinking he did that even after they were shown an article saying that only some federally funded stem cell work was stopped.
  • People who said the economy was the most important issue to them, and who disapproved of Obama’s economic record, were shown a graph of nonfarm employment over the prior year – a rising line, adding about a million jobs. They were asked whether the number of people with jobs had gone up, down or stayed about the same. Many, looking straight at the graph, said down.
  • But if, before they were shown the graph, they were asked to write a few sentences about an experience that made them feel good about themselves, a significant number of them changed their minds about the economy. If you spend a few minutes affirming your self-worth, you’re more likely to say that the number of jobs increased.
"In Kahan’s experiment, some people were asked to interpret a table of numbers about whether a skin cream reduced rashes, and some people were asked to interpret a different table – containing the same numbers – about whether a law banning private citizens from carrying concealed handguns reduced crime. Kahan found that when the numbers in the table conflicted with people’s positions on gun control, they couldn’t do the math right, though they could when the subject was skin cream. The bleakest finding was that the more advanced that people’s math skills were, the more likely it was that their political views, whether liberal or conservative, made them less able to solve the math problem.

"I hate what this implies – not only about gun control, but also about other contentious issues, like climate change. I’m not completely ready to give up on the idea that disputes over facts can be resolved by evidence, but you have to admit that things aren’t looking so good for a reason. I keep hoping that one more photo of an iceberg the size of Manhattan calving off of Greenland, one more stretch of record-breaking heat and drought and fires, one more graph of how atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen in the past century, will do the trick. But what these studies of how our minds work suggest is that the political judgments we’ve already made are impervious to facts that contradict us.

"Maybe climate change denial isn’t the right term; it implies a psychological disorder. Denial is business-as-usual for our brains. More and better facts don’t turn low-information voters into well-equipped citizens. It just makes them more committed to their misperceptions. In the entire history of the universe, no Fox News viewers ever changed their minds because some new data upended their thinking. When there’s a conflict between partisan beliefs and plain evidence, it’s the beliefs that win. The power of emotion over reason isn’t a bug in our human operating systems, it’s a feature."
I agree that it is discouraging that people cannot see what is painfully obvious and that our emotions block our reason. I would like to offer you some hope that minds can be changed. I know that mine has been change by time, people, the Internet and my own desire to find the truth. Maybe some will argue not for the better. There is another example of people's ability to change is found in the form discussion of Flight 370 after Chris's post. I think that Chris's well earned good reputation gave his posting enough weight that it punched through at least two people's belief on how the world works. One person states that twenty years ago (s)he would not have believed it but now believes it possible that they were disappeared for the reason stated in Chris's video.
 
I agree that it is discouraging that people cannot see what is painfully obvious and that our emotions block our reason. I would like to offer you some hope that minds can be changed. I know that mine has been change by time, people, the Internet and my own desire to find the truth. Maybe some will argue not for the better. There is another example of people's ability to change is found in the form discussion of Flight 370 after Chris's post. I think that Chris's well earned good reputation gave his posting enough weight that it punched through at least two people's belief on how the world works. One person states that twenty years ago (s)he would not have believed it but now believes it possible that they were disappeared for the reason stated in Chris's video.

Could you give a link to the video you are indicating? And Chris' post? Many thanks.
 
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Vincent Freeman - Hour 1 - Chemtrails Pathogen, Xenobiology & Engineered Bacteria April 4, 2014 Vincent Freeman is a molecular biologist and artificial intelligence scientist who has worked on classified programs at some of the top-50 defense contractors. He has also conducted genetic and biological analysis for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Vincent is currently volunteering his time as a senior consultant to the Carnicom Institute, a non-profit research organization whose goal is to identify and expose covert geo-engineering and bio-engineering
Red Ice Radio - Vincent Freeman - Hour 1 - Chemtrails Pathogen, Xenobiology & Engineered Bacteria
 
426764_10151515928398842_1660054956_n.jpg


Vincent Freeman - Hour 1 - Chemtrails Pathogen, Xenobiology & Engineered Bacteria April 4, 2014 Vincent Freeman is a molecular biologist and artificial intelligence scientist who has worked on classified programs at some of the top-50 defense contractors. He has also conducted genetic and biological analysis for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Vincent is currently volunteering his time as a senior consultant to the Carnicom Institute, a non-profit research organization whose goal is to identify and expose covert geo-engineering and bio-engineering
Red Ice Radio - Vincent Freeman - Hour 1 - Chemtrails Pathogen, Xenobiology & Engineered Bacteria

You might convince me of this, Flipper. :D ;) :)
 
426764_10151515928398842_1660054956_n.jpg


Vincent Freeman - Hour 1 - Chemtrails Pathogen, Xenobiology & Engineered Bacteria April 4, 2014 Vincent Freeman is a molecular biologist and artificial intelligence scientist who has worked on classified programs at some of the top-50 defense contractors. He has also conducted genetic and biological analysis for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Vincent is currently volunteering his time as a senior consultant to the Carnicom Institute, a non-profit research organization whose goal is to identify and expose covert geo-engineering and bio-engineering
Red Ice Radio - Vincent Freeman - Hour 1 - Chemtrails Pathogen, Xenobiology & Engineered Bacteria

LOL Chemtrails!
 
Geoengineering is not a conspiracy theory Angelo. It is admitted and regulated.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Hi Burnt State;
I was listening to a pod-cast and at the end of it the person being interviewed said all the things that you have been saying about how all things are connected and will lead to our destruction through climate change. Here is what his talk was about:
The bombing of Laos was, and still is, the most protracted bombing of civilian targets in world history. So asserts Fred Branfman about the secret, automated war waged by the US executive branch from 1964 to 1973. Part Two of the Fred Branfman interview addresses US government secrecy and lies; war in Laos as a model for subsequent (and current) US force projection and military aggression; and the tragic legacy of unexploded ordnance.
Fred Branfman is a Jewish America who at the end of his being interviewed compares how what happened to the people on the Plane of Jars is similar and deferent to the Jews during the Holocaust. The Laotian people never were people to the United States government and he says this attitude has come home so that now there is no longer any problem killing us. The end result of this attitude will be continued climate change and the end of humans.
Tues 3.04.14 | Secrets, Lies, and the "Laos Model" | Against the Grain: A Program about Politics, Society and Ideas
Thanks for turning me on to Against The Grain - lots of excellent topics; good strong political analysis as well. We definitely live in a society where everyone is expendable. While the Executive Branch has the powers to execute anyone they want whenever they want, we also live in a consumer pacified society where truth and lies are interchangeable (see clinate change). We're all asleep down here. But even a minor bit of scrutiny of our condumer food, especially meat, is mostly toxic to our healthy longevity, and the ability for sperm to make male babies. As stated elsewhere these are the days of Brave New World and it's coloured Soylent Green. I'm not sure about the mocking of bee colony collapse disorder as the implications are profound. These are interesting days as we witness different kinds of reckonings in the age of conditioned passivity.

The Hopi thread is also interesting - our legacy is unfolding. Our values have taken us here.
 
Run away run away!! The sky is falling! Climate change is a diversion. Wake up.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Signs of the Times in March 2014
Extreme drought was blamed for a massive die-off of animals in Colombia, yet there was record flooding in neighboring Bolivia. California somehow experienced record drought, record rainfall and record wildfires all in the same month... along with a rare tornado that damaged homes. The weird 'winter wildfire' season continued, with hundreds of wildfires breaking out across the U.S., even as the country was plunged into another deep freeze and battered with heavy rainfall from strong storms. Meanwhile a once rare event, but now occurring several times annually, saw another large tornado hit northern Italy on 23 March.
SOTT Video Summary: Planetary Upheaval and High Strangeness in March 2014 -- Earth Changes -- Sott.net
 
Signs of the Times in March 2014
Extreme drought was blamed for a massive die-off of animals in Colombia, yet there was record flooding in neighboring Bolivia. California somehow experienced record drought, record rainfall and record wildfires all in the same month... along with a rare tornado that damaged homes. The weird 'winter wildfire' season continued, with hundreds of wildfires breaking out across the U.S., even as the country was plunged into another deep freeze and battered with heavy rainfall from strong storms. Meanwhile a once rare event, but now occurring several times annually, saw another large tornado hit northern Italy on 23 March.
SOTT Video Summary: Planetary Upheaval and High Strangeness in March 2014 -- Earth Changes -- Sott.net

That 'fire-nado' was scary, no? :confused:

I'm not at all surprised about Dubai - I've been wondering when they would be getting extreme rains because of the micro-climate change they've induced in that region on what was desert.

What I wish is that videos - and snippets in compilations - were date and time stamped. I have been feeling that way about cable shows - especially history channel documentaries and such like. With a book one can check the copyright date - videos are drifting in time. I know this video is suppose to be a compilation of events in March 2014 - and I trust it is - but all those fireballs, I kept wondering what the date and time sequence were on them. (Probably also location would be handy).
 
I came across this. I thought it was well done - gives good visuals.


Text: Published on Oct 4, 2013

This edition of COSMIC JOURNEYS explores the still unfolding story of Earth's past and the light it sheds on the science of climate change today. While that story can tell us about the mechanisms that can shape our climate. it's still the unique conditions of our time that will determine sea levels, ice coverage, and temperatures.

Ice, in its varied forms, covers as much as 16% of Earth's surface, including 33% of land areas at the height of the northern winter. Glaciers, sea ice, permafrost, ice sheets and snow play an important role in Earth's climate. They reflect energy back to space, shape ocean currents, and spawn weather patterns.

But there are signs that Earth's great stores of ice are beginning to melt. To find out where Earth might be headed, scientists are drilling down into the ice, and scouring ancient sea beds, for evidence of past climate change. What are they learning about the fate of our planet... a thousand years into the future and even beyond?

30,000 years ago, Earth began a relentless descent into winter. Glaciers pushed into what were temperate zones. Ice spread beyond polar seas. New layers of ice accumulated on the vast frozen plateau of Greenland. At three kilometers thick, Greenland's ice sheet is a monumental formation built over successive ice ages and millions of years. It's so heavy that it has pushed much of the island down below sea level. And yet, today, scientists have begun to wonder how resilient this ice sheet really is.

Average global temperatures have risen about one degree Celsius since the industrial revolution. They could go up another degree by the end of this century. If Greenland's ice sheet were to melt, sea levels would rise by over seven meters. That would destroy or threaten the homes and livelihoods of up to a quarter of the world's population.

With so much at stake, scientists are monitoring Earth's frozen zones... with satellites, radar flights, and expeditions to drill deep into ice sheets. And they are reconstructing past climates, looking for clues to where Earth might now be headed... not just centuries, but thousands of years in the future.

Periods of melting and freezing, it turns out, are central events in our planet's history.
That's been born out by evidence ranging from geological traces of past sea levels... the distribution of fossils... chemical traces that correspond to ocean temperatures, and more.

Going back over two billion years, earth has experienced five major glacial or ice ages. The first, called the Huronian, has been linked to the rise of photosynthesis in primitive organisms. They began to take in carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas. That decreased the amount of solar energy trapped by the atmosphere, sending Earth into a deep freeze.

The second major ice age began 580 million years ago. It was so severe, it's often referred to as "snowball earth." The Andean-Saharan and the Karoo ice ages began 460 and 360 million years ago. Finally, there's the Quaternary... from 2.6 million years ago to the present. Periods of cooling and warming have been spurred by a range of interlocking factors: the movement of continents, patterns of ocean circulation, volcanic events, the evolution of plants and animals.

The world as we know it was beginning to take shape in the period from 90 to 50 million years ago. The continents were moving toward their present positions. The Americas separated from Europe and Africa. India headed toward a merger with Asia. The world was getting warmer. Temperatures spiked roughly 55 million years ago, going up about 5 degrees Celsius in just a few thousand years. CO2 levels rose to about 1000 parts per million compared to 280 in pre-industrial times, and 390 today.

But the stage was set for a major cool down. The configuration of landmasses had cut the Arctic off from the wider oceans. That allowed a layer of fresh water to settle over it, and a sea plant called Azolla to spread widely. In a year, it can soak up as much as 6 tons of CO2 per acre. Plowing into Asia, the Indian subcontinent caused the mighty Himalayan Mountains to rise up. In a process called weathering, rainfall interacting with exposed rock began to draw more CO2 from the atmosphere... washing it into the sea. Temperatures steadily dropped.

By around 33 million years ago, South America had separated from Antarctica. Currents swirling around the continent isolated it from warm waters to the north. An ice sheet formed. In time, with temperatures and CO2 levels continuing to fall, the door was open for a more subtle climate driver. It was first described by the 19th century Serbian scientist, Milutin Milankovic.

He saw that periodic variations in Earth's rotational motion altered the amount of solar radiation striking the poles. In combination, every 100,000 years or so, these variations have sent earth into a period of cool temperatures and spreading ice.
 
LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/s....html?emc=edit_na_20140506&nlid=54852892&_r=0

TEXT: "The effects of human-induced climate change are being felt in every corner of the United States, scientists reported Tuesday, with water growing scarcer in dry regions, torrential rains increasing in wet regions, heat waves becoming more common and more severe, wildfires growing worse, and forests dying under assault from heat-loving insects.

"Such sweeping changes have been caused by an average warming of less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit over most land areas of the country in the past century, the scientists found. If greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane continue to escalate at a rapid pace, they said, the warming could conceivably exceed 10 degrees by the end of this century.

" “Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” the scientists declared in a major new report assessing the situation in the United States.

" “Summers are longer and hotter, and extended periods of unusual heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced,” the report continued. “Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours. People are seeing changes in the length and severity of seasonal allergies, the plant varieties that thrive in their gardens, and the kinds of birds they see in any particular month in their neighborhoods.” "
 
I think climate change skeptics are going to be pushed out into the fringe even further.

Oh, do you folks recall that none other than Stanton Friedman is a climate change skeptic. Wonder what he thinks now.
 
I wish someone would coin a term for climate change induced by activities of mankind vs that caused by natural and poorly understood cycles. It might help to clarify the argument a bit. And no, I really don't feel as if I know which phenomenon we are seeing. We are again dependent on those who crunch the data for a living. Should we take a head count among experts on both sides of this issue, and go with the majority? Rate those experts we think are most qualified and honor their assessments ? Assume the worst and go on a kind of ecological "crash diet" ?

From Wiki and well documented by historical sources:

Glacier Bay, the body of water, covers an area 1,375 square miles (3,560 km2) of glaciers and accounts for 27% of the Park area. It was a large single glacier of solid ice till early 18th century. It started retreating and evolved over the centuries into the largest protected water area park in the world.

So this huge body of water has apparently been thawing for the last 300 years. The sight of those magnificent glaciers retreating is genuinely sad. But one comes away a bit conflicted.

This is not the last word and I honestly don't know. What I think I know is that greenhouse gas emissions, reduced to whatever extent by more ecologically minded nations, will be more than offset by developing nations hungry for improved standards of living and not amenable to an ecologically centered point of view. In fact, we have to some extent cleaned up our own backyards by outsourcing both our production and our pollution to places where it is sadly out of sight and mostly out of mind.

Dunno. Maybe I'm overly pessimistic.
 
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